Thursday, August 14, 2008

The algorithm method

The romantic matching service eHarmony hasn’t exactly cornered the market on online relationship services, but the company — with its silver-haired Christian self-help founder and pitchman CEO, its exhaustive questionnaire, its algorithmically-derived pairing decisions, its glowing customer testimonials — has cemented itself in the American consciousness.

A new eHarmony ad capitalizes on love's evolving dimensions in a way that’s startlingly different from other mainstream relationship Web sites. As far as it goes.

The new ad shows a glowing couple, giddy with the PDAs of blooming love. Chris and Maggie reflect the wonders of finding the right match. The words go up on the screen: “Chris and Maggie, matched July 30, 2004.”

Chris is a white man, Maggie an Asian woman.

Later in the same ad, we’re introduced to Farren and Travis — similarly caught up in the throes of true love, and just as compelling a visible testimonial to the power of love (and eHarmony). We get their back story too: “Farren and Travis, matched March 18, 2006.”

Farren is a white woman, Travis is an African American man.

The “so what?” you’re barely able to suppress right now is exactly the point. Interracial love is and has been a part of the American experience from the beginning; the number of interracial couples continues to grow; the power and potential of the presidential campaign of Barack Obama is part of their legacy.

◊ ◊ ◊

So what took mainstream relationship services so long? eHarmony, which started in 2000, has come to the necessary (and welcome) recognition that not all couples are the same race; that the demographic of the United States in the 21st century no longer fits the usual, comfortable categories.

But you have to wonder why it took eight years for eHarmony and founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren, a friend of Focus on the Family founder and devoted political conservative Dr. James Dobson, to make the minor pivot to recognition of interracial love.

And despite its latest not-quite-groundbreaking campaign, don’t bestow on eHarmony anything like enlightenment. The company, which has reportedly had some 20 million users since it launched, is the target of a class-action sex discrimination lawsuit filed in California in May, for its refusal to include gays or lesbians in its subscriber base.

All of which suggests double-talk from eHarmony and a willingness to erect another firewall of the heart where none really exists. eHarmony’s opposition to these couples outside the mainstream led to eHarmony’s nimble competitor, Chemistry.com, to make a point of that exclusion in its own advertising.

Newsweek’s Lisa Miller reported on eHarmony’s weak defense in May: “A company lawyer explains that eHarmony makes matches based on unique scientific research into what makes heterosexual unions work; it hasn't done the same kind of work on gay unions, though it doesn't rule out such research in the future.”

Algorithms don’t make racial distinctions or ignore people on the basis of sexual preference. They’re funny like that. But when you combine algorithms with an agenda, you’ve got trouble, or at least problems. eHarmony’s made one mathematical breakthrough: the discovery that persons inclined to interracial relationships actually exist and thrive in our culture, just like those inclined to single-race relationships.

7 comments:

I came across an online community for individual seeking interracial love. It is ++++((((---Blackwhitemeet. C O M))))++++ All singles there are seeking interracial relationships. Interracial is not a problem here, but a great merit to cherish!

and this was before the present batch of Chris/Maggie and Travis/Farren ads. I took a moment tonight to find out the earliest published record of an eHarmony interracial matchup, and what I found is APRIL 2006 as per Idahoan Statesman for Travis and Farren.

So yeah, some of their MEMBERS discriminate on race, but clearly eHarmony doesn’t.

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Shameless Self-Promotion II

America from 2004 to 2009 – its new ironies and old habits, its capacity for change – is topic A in this collection of essays and blog posts on popular culture, the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, a transformative election, and the first 100 days of the Obama administration. | Now available at Authorhouse

shameless self-promotion

One nation subject to change: A collection of topical essays exploring television, hip-hop, patriotism, the use of language under Bush II, and the author's own reckoning with mortality. | Available at Authorhouse

A veteran journalist, producer and blogger, Michael Eric Ross is a frequent contributor to the content channels of Jerrick Media, and a periodic contributor to TheWrap, a major online source of entertainment news and analysis. He writes from Los Angeles on the arts, politics, race and ethnicity, and pop culture. A graduate of the University of Colorado, he's worked as a reporter, editor and critic at several newspapers and websites, including The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, MSN, Current and NBCNews.com. He was formerly an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, PopMatters, Salon, The Root, seattlepi.com, NPR.com, theGrio, BuzzFeed, Medium and other publications. Author of the novel Flagpole Days (2003); and essay collections Interesting Times (2004) and American Bandwidth (2009), he contributed to the anthologies MultiAmerica (edited by Ishmael Reed, 1997) and Soul Food (2000).